At Home With Arthur and Molly
by Pegasus
Summary: A sugarquill forum challenge, this little fic is simply a 'missing scene' from Half Blood Prince. May be considered to contain spoilers, but not plot ones. Enjoy.


**At Home With Arthur and Mollywobbles**

Another forum challenge this one: to write a missing scene from Half Blood Prince. So here's mine. I kind of like this one, it flowed nicely.

**Disclaimer bit**

Not mine, JKR's/Warner Bros. property. No financial gain, wah wah wah wah.

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It was some time after Harry had gone upstairs to bed that Arthur and Molly Weasley were left truly alone. Molly had put away all the dinner things and Arthur had sat in his favourite, battered old reclining armchair by the fire. It was an eyesore: springs stuck out at odd angles and he had an unnaturally healthy obsession with the reclining mechanism, but every time Molly had tried to get rid of it, it'd mysteriously come back, usually with another spring exposed, or a bit of upholstery flapping off it like a surrender flag.

She brought a mug of cocoa over to her husband, who was dozing lightly, and touched his arm gently.

"Wassat? Eh? Who's that there, then?"

"Arthur, it's just me, Molly."

A long pause, then in an accusatory tone:

"I can't BELIEVE you called me Mollywobbles in front of Harry Potter. If the ground could have opened up and swallowed me there and then, I'd still have died from the embarrassment."

"Well, how was I to know that he was here? Ah, cocoa, thank you." He took the proffered mug and took an appreciative sip of the beverage. "And besides," he added, a severe expression on his face. "Surely a moment's worth of embarrassment is better than being attacked by someone who wasn't really me?" He leaned over and picked up his copy of the 'Daily Prophet'.

"I…suppose, but still. What that poor boy must think."

"Good job I didn't use the OTHER name, isn't it?" There was a faintly impish grin on her husband's face, an expression she'd not seen in many years. For the briefest of moments, the perpetual darkness that had pervaded Molly Weasley's life lifted and the sun of her husband's protective, honest and genuine love shone on her with a welcome warmth.

"Don't. Can you imagine?"

Molly settled down in the chair opposite Arthur's and they drank their cocoa in companionable silence for a while. It had been a long time since they had felt secure like this. It was the strangest thing: Albus Dumbledore had been here for the briefest of moments, and yet his presence brought a calm reassurance to Molly that everything was somehow going to be alright in the end.

Her eyes swung to the kitchen clock, still showing all the hands at 'Mortal Peril', and sighed heavily. It was hard to make out the individual faces when they were all clumped together like that. Her children. Now mostly grown, living away from home or just not speaking to her.

"I never thought it'd be like this," Molly murmured.

"Hmm? What's that, dear?" Arthur looked up over the top of his copy of the 'Daily Prophet'. There was a peculiar little tone in his wife's voice that he hadn't heard before. She sounded…regretful.

"I said, I never thought it'd be like this," she repeated. "Our life together, I mean." She sipped at her cocoa. "Do you remember the promise we made on our wedding day?"

"Which particular one?" Arthur's voice came from behind the 'Prophet'.

"The one about travelling the world."

The paper lowered again. "We got as far as Skegness," he said, after a few moment's thought. "It was you who decided you didn't like flying, and it was you who said that Apparating made you feel sick. I offered to drive a Muggle car, but you didn't approve of that either." There was no unpleasantness in his words, just affection for his wife. Arthur adored Molly. Though she was not a fighter like the other women in the order, she had a quiet authority that they all respected unquestionably. She wasn't just the mother of their children, she was an iconic mother to all of them. When she asked you to do something, you did it. Not to do it would probably result in smaller portions of dinner, something Mundungus Fletcher's stomach had realised very quickly.

Molly sighed again. "We'd only been married a few months before I realised I was expecting Bill," she said. "Isn't it funny how our priorities changed?" She sipped at her cocoa, and then she asked her question.

"Do you regret it, Arthur?"

"What, Bill? I sometimes wish he'd lose the pony tail and earring, but no, I don't regret it particularly." He was deliberately teasing.

"No, not Bill." She glared at him. "Our life together. You could have married a more exciting witch than me. Could have been off having great adventures, not stuck in a house that's held together with little more than goodwill and best intentions, having to raise Fred and George…"

A movement on the clock made her look up. Percy's face had spun round to 'Travelling', and she watched it wordlessly until it returned to 'Mortal Peril'. Arthur watched it, too, then watched his wife's face. Usually placid and taciturn, Arthur Weasley was suddenly extraordinarily angry.

"Maybe one or two Percy-shaped regrets," he said, his voice carefully emotionless. "But nothing I can't get over." Seeing the look on Molly's face made him regret his choice of words. "Molly, we have to face up to the truth where Percy is concerned. He chose the path he's taken. We've never done anything to make him feel that he's not welcome back here. Fred and George – and, I suspect to a lesser degree, Ginny – on the other hand…aren't so forgiving."

"But he won't come back, will he?" Molly's eyes filled with tears. Percy may have been, to quote Ron, 'the most annoying git ever to walk the face of the planet', but he was still her son. Every letter she'd sent him since he'd walked out of their lives had been returned, and the sting of the return of her lovingly knitted jumper still made her cry herself to sleep at times. (She still had the jumper, still in its wrapping, in the bottom drawer – for the day Percy came back).

"Molly…" Arthur, usually so good at knowing what to say was unable to say anything to make his wife smile. Instead, he put down his newspaper and came across to kneel before her. He took the mug out of her hand. "In every batch of apples, one goes bad. Let's just be thankful he's not been able to contaminate the others. Smile, Molly. Bill's getting married – never mind that expression, I'm sure you and Fleur will reach…er…an understanding. Charlie's doing an excellent job and has been promoted – again. You've seen for yourself the wonderful job Fred and George are doing in business. Ron's OWL results come tomorrow, and I think he'll surprise us both. And Ginny, well, you can't improve on perfect." He reached up and brushed one of her tears away.

"And whether he knows I call you 'Mollywobbles' or not, I think Harry loves you too, more than you know. So don't be sad, Molly. Hope is the only thing we have left, the only thing that You-Know-Who can't take away from us. We'll make it through. All of the Weasley's will make it through. All the time we have Albus Dumbledore on our side, there's a light at the end of the tunnel."

Molly composed herself.

"I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel," she said, grimly. "It's just that sometimes, I wonder if it's an oncoming train."

"Come on, let's go to bed," said Arthur, holding out his hand to her. "Mollywobbles."

She just hit him with the newspaper.

© S Watkins, 2005


End file.
